Peeking outside his conference hotel room, the grad student evades awkward encounters with other attendees.

The clergy and the lewd

The Old English ancestor of the word lewd meant ‘lay: non-ecclesiastical’. For example, þā lǣwedan wīfmenn didn’t mean 'the lewd women’ but 'the laywomen’. The current meanings 'obscene’ and 'sexually unchaste’ evolved from the meaning 'lay’ in a downward spiral spanning many centuries. This type of meaning change is called pejoration. Click my graphic for more about lewd and other words whose meaning worsened. Later this week, we’ll look at the opposite type of semantic shift: amelioration.

Ambiguities 🤷‍♂️

‚Changes are at your door …‘

‚Keep it (the door) closed‘ (zulassen = to keep closed)

or

‚Allow them (the changes) in‘ (zulassen = allow)

Source

Bumbling through a conversation with an eminent professor, the grad student outdoes his own stupidity with every remark he makes.

Source:

Dr_Linguo on Twitter

tester test

… ambiguities …

Anywhere is walking distance if you’ve got nothing better to do.

I thought the name was „academia“

Lebenszeitbetrug: wenn man außerhalb der Arbeitszeiten an die Arbeit denkt

official linguistics post

Girles were children

The ancestor of the word girl meant ‘child of any gender’. Its meaning narrowed to 'young female human’ during the Middle English period. The meanings of words change over time. This is called semantic drift. Click my new graphic below to have a closer look at five examples of narrowing. Tomorrow we’ll dive into the opposite semantic change: widening.

5 weeks after the start of the semester …

thx @ppasdeprobleme

The joys of the German language where we have words like this.

(Translation: Tunnel completely closed for four hours on Tuesday - Extension of the rescue stairwell)

I see your 30 letter word and raise you two more letters:

Translation:

Private property

Stopping and parking only for tenants

Infringement will be persecuted according § 12 of the federal state law of misdemeanors of Baden-Württemberg.

When writing your thesis, follow the armorer’s advice!

Armorer: Persistence without insight will lead to the same outcome

Do you use LaTeX?

Did you know that at https://glottolog.org you can find 442.519 BibTeX entries used in linguistic journals and publishers just to copy and paste if you need them?

Take a look:

Glottolog 5.1 -

#OpenAccess

Source